Friday, September 21, 2007

En l'an 2000

The Bibliotheque Nationale de France has an online exhibition of a vision of the world in the year 2000 - published in the year 1910. It's interesting to see what the artist got right, and what he got wrong. Air-Sea Rescue - but also radium fireplaces. He correctly predicted that electric power would replace human labour - but he didn't foresee that the biggest impact would be from automating thought rather than muscle.

He also didn't see that the fashions of 1910 would not be a la mode in 2000. But it's an appealing vision... I'm still hoping for my personal monoplane to get me to work.

Martin,Once the prices come down a bit and they finally release this thing, you may want to consider getting one of these car planes made by an MIT startup. I think they are supposed to start at $150,000 and release will be sometime in 2009.

http://www.terrafugia.com/landing.html

The price of small planes has come down quite a bit though to under $100,000 now so my husband tells me (he's taking pilot lessons), and they take regular car gas, have electronic instrumentation and a parachute for the whole plane.

The disadvantage of the small planes over the car plane though is that you still need to park them in a air hanger where as the car plane folds into a car and can be parked in a regular garage so I understand.